For a week, Washington coach Steve Sarkisian said he was “kicking myself” for giving star running back Bishop Sankey just 13 carries in UW’s blowout loss at Arizona State.

The Huskies can kick back a bit this week, thanks in large part because of Sankey’s career-high 241 yards rushing, on 27 carries, in Saturday night’s 41-17 victory over California.

That ended a three-game losing skid for the Huskies (5-3, 2-3 Pac-12), who enter a bye this week with a chance to refresh and relax as they look ahead to an important November finish.

It will be a well-deserved rest for Sankey, who leads the nation with 199 carries and is second with 1,162 yards. He’s also tied for the national lead with 12 rushing touchdowns.

The Huskies will host Colorado (3-4, 0-4) on Nov. 9, with a kickoff time expected to be announced Monday. UW then closes out the regular season with back-to-back road trips to UCLA (Friday, Nov. 15) and Oregon State (Nov. 23) before hosting the Apple Cup on Friday, Nov. 29.

“We know we’ve got a long way to go,” UW quarterback Keith Price said after the victory over Cal late Saturday night. “It’s good to get healed for the bye week. We know we’ve got Colorado coming in here and they’re going to try hard. We have a stretch now where we have UCLA and guys like that down the road, but it’s one game at a time. It truly is.

“We’re going to enjoy this win, but we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Price said his right thumb felt at about “90 percent” strength against Cal, the best it has felt since he injured it in the first half at Stanford on Oct. 5. It wasn’t until Thursday that Price learned that he would play against Cal.

“I could hardly palm the ball for two or three weeks,” he said. “I played through the pain.”

The senior quarterback wound up throwing for 376 yards and three touchdowns, and the UW offense totaled 642 yards.

“It felt awesome tonight,” he said after the game. “And this bye week will be awesome for me.”

Sankey, meanwhile, had 188 yards in the first half alone against the Bears. In the second quarter, he surpassed 1,000 yards for the season, just the fourth Husky to do that more than once.

“We came out in the first half and ran the ball well,” he said, “and that was just something we were looking to continue in the second half.”